


i'm too tired for this

by maggiewilliams



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crushes, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, One Shot, Self-Indulgent, seriously just self-indulgent fluff, that's just cuz mark and amy aren't together, vague mentions to unus annus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29244042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiewilliams/pseuds/maggiewilliams
Summary: In which both Mark and Ethan have been crushing on each other for months, and maybe all they needed was to stay up all night together. What better way to do that than to try and do an entire puzzle in twenty-four hours?
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 123





	i'm too tired for this

**Author's Note:**

> the ~ symbol indicates a perspective change!  
> (also this is purely fiction and i don't think mark and ethan are actually together and all that)

It was three A.M. There was only one camera in the room. Evan and Amy had long since gone to bed.

“That piece doesn’t go there,” Ethan said, reaching across the table.

“Yes, it does.” Mark slapped his hand away just as Ethan grabbed the puzzle piece. “It fits.”

“It really doesn’t.”

“It does.”

Build a two-thousand piece puzzle in one day, Amy had said, you both are so bored. Neither Mark nor Ethan were good at puzzles. They certainly didn’t agree to let Amy take the box away so they didn’t even have the picture. They weren’t even halfway done and they only had nine hours left.

Ethan was hoarding all of the blue pieces. Anything that had blue on it, he wanted. The offending piece had the slightest bit of blue sky right in the corner, but the rest of it had a whole host of green foliage that absolutely was in the right place. Ethan just wanted to keep the blue ones all to himself.

“You know,” Ethan started, trying to inch his hand across the puzzle for the offending piece again, “this would go much faster if we cooperated.”

  
“You know,” Mark mocked, picking up Ethan’s hand, “this would go much faster if someone wasn’t stealing all of the blue pieces.”

  
“Yeah, as if you aren’t collecting all the green yourself. Let go of me. I’m working.”

  
Mark looked up from the pieces right into Ethan’s eyes, still holding onto his fingers. The lamp behind him created a silhouette of light in his outline. His hair was getting frizzy from the number of times he’d ran his hands through it. Mark didn’t even realize he’d started smiling.

  
“You’re so tired,” Ethan said jokingly, snatching his own hand back. Mark cleared his throat and returned to his green pieces.

  
Mark let Ethan take the long-sought-over piece and put it in a very wrong spot. He was in a bit of a forgiving mood now. Or perhaps his mind was just elsewhere.

~

  
It was four A.M. Ethan had finally given in to Mark’s consistent pestering after the whatever hand-holding incident had happened. Anything for that to not happen again, because Ethan wasn’t sure in his incredibly sleep-deprived state he could stop himself from leaning over and kissing Mark like he’d wanted to since midnight.

  
When they first started they hadn’t stopped talking for hours, but now they’d been working in silence. A comfortable silence, though, with the occasional “give me that” or “your hand’s in the way.” Every once in a while they brushed fingertips and Ethan was having trouble containing himself.

  
This is stupid, he thought. He’s my best friend. I’m just tired. Yeah, that’s it. Ethan agreed with his own inner voice, pretending that his undeniable attraction had simply started a few hours ago and not at all several months.

  
“Do you have any more of the yellow sunset over there?” Mark asked.

  
Ethan looked up at him as he spoke. Mark was absently biting a nail, poking through his pile of stray pieces. Half his hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. His t-shirt was still all wet from when he’d missed his mouth with the glass of water and spilled it all over himself. His eyes were perfectly illuminated by the lamp, revealing all of the little flecks that hide so well in any other light.

  
“Hello?” Mark waved a hand in front of Ethan’s face.

  
Oh, right. He’d asked a question.

  
“What?” Ethan said, internally kicking himself. How long had he been staring at Mark?

  
“I asked if you had any of the yellow sunset.”

  
“Oh.” Ethan ran his hands through his hair and poked through his own pile. “No, I don’t think I do.”

  
~

  
It was five A.M. Mark wondered if Ethan had always been this attractive, or if his tiredness was just getting to him.

  
He’d tried to ignore his growing feelings for Ethan for months, but they weren’t exactly anything that could be ignored. His smile, his laugh brought such unparalleled fluttering feelings in his chest. His every touch brought sparks to his skin. All of Ethan’s little habits, like biting his lip or playing with his earring, brought a small smile to his face, unconsciously.

  
Ethan was his best friend. He couldn’t be falling for him (or even worse, already fallen). No way.

  
Their progress on the puzzle had slowed significantly. Mark felt like his brain had turned into sludge. Ethan rested his head on one hand and hadn’t moved in five minutes. Mark resisted the urge to slap his arm away and let his head fall onto the table.

  
“Hey,” Mark said softly, gently nudging his shoulder instead. Ethan jerked awake.

  
“I’m up,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “I’m awake.”

  
“You can sleep on the couch,” Mark said. “I’ll get some blankets.”

  
“No, I’m up,” Ethan said, stretching. His shirt lifted from his stomach and Mark had to force his eyes away. “We’ve only got-- some time left. We gotta do it.”

  
“You don’t have to.”

  
“No, no, we’re doing it.”

  
At some point after that conversation (Mark stopped bothering to check the clock) Ethan insisted they sat on the same side of the table. Mark pulled his chair over to Ethan’s left and for a while the new perspective was incredibly helpful. Ethan started humming to keep himself awake.

  
“I can think of several much more effective ways that I can keep you awake,” Mark said.

  
“Like what?” Ethan said.

  
Mark reached over and pinched Ethan’s arm.

  
“Ow!” Ethan pinched Mark’s arm in return.

  
“Hey, that wasn’t part of the deal!”

  
Ethan reached for Mark’s arm again and the two ended up in a half-hearted pinching wrestle. Mark caught Ethan’s hand as it went for his neck and Ethan took hold of his other wrist and they stopped for a moment, holding each other still. Mark’s heart was beating so fast he was sure Ethan could feel it in his pulse.

  
Slowly, Ethan crept his hand up from Mark’s wrist to his hand, interlocking their fingers together. Mark couldn’t take it anymore.

  
He let go of his other hand and lurched forward, grabbing the back of Ethan’s head and pulling him into a kiss.

  
~

  
Ethan couldn’t think of anything but the feeling of Mark’s lips on his. He put a hand on Mark’s shoulder, pulling him closer, pulling them together. Mark’s fingers twisted in his hair. Mark’s lips were soft, gentle, hesitant. Mark tasted like coffee and vanilla.

  
Mark pulled away, but only just, that his face was no more than an inch from Ethan’s. Their noses still touched. The light brown flecks in Mark’s eyes were so much better up close like this than Ethan could’ve ever imagined.

  
“Ethan,” Mark whispered, but didn’t say anything else. Ethan leaned in and kissed him softly, savoring the small smile that formed on Mark’s lips as his hand moved from his hair, to the back of his neck, to his jaw.

  
~

  
It was almost fully light out now. Ethan was fast asleep on Mark’s shoulder, one of the small throw blankets from the couch draped over him. Mark was still working on the puzzle, but slower and more deliberate, as not to wake him.

  
Ethan’s words played over and over in his head. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he’d said. He’d said that. He had. Mark wasn’t imagining things. That was a real thing Ethan said. Ethan wanted to kiss him, too.

  
Maybe he was just tired, Mark thought. Ethan was just very, very tired. Tired enough that he mistook Mark for some other, Mark-like human that he’d wanted to kiss, because, of course, that was a very logical mistake to make when one had been awake for over twenty-four hours.

  
Having just passed twenty-four hours himself, Mark didn’t have the mindpower capable to convince himself that Ethan did, in fact, have feelings for him.

  
Ethan shifted his position in the chair and reached for Mark’s hand, lacing their fingers together yet again. He dropped his head onto Ethan’s, rubbing his thumb against the back of his hand.

  
He could get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments appreciated!  
> (edit: you are are absolutely beautiful human beings thank you for all the love!! <3)


End file.
